Cloudberry Kingdom (XBLA) Review

Cloudberry Kingdom is what most people would call a "Torture" Platformer in the same vain as games like Super Meat Boy. While I can't disagree that Cloudberry has Torture type gameplay I can say that it eases you into the torture. Now you may be asking "Niker, how on earth does it accomplish this?" Well, loyal reader I will let you know in the following paragraph(s) of insightful knowledge. 

Cloudberry Kingdom is a platforming game that is proceduraly generated, what this means is that through some magic no two levels will ever be the same and they will be completely random. Now as I said earlier Cloudberry does a excellent job at easing you into it's toughness, it accomplishes this by having each level randomize and generate depending on the skill level of the player. This in turn creates not only a satisfying experience but one that will last with you for a while. Another layer of depth has also been added on to this cloudberry layer cake in that every 10 levels you're hero will be given a different gimmick. 

What I mean by gimmick is that in some levels you're only ability will be to normal jump. Well after completing 10 levels you will gain the ability to double jump. One would think that from there on out you would get to keep the double jump but no, as you complete those 10 levels and move on you could get something wacky like the spaceship hero which turns you into a ship! But in turn you would lose you're ability to double jump.


(That is the ship ability!)

So now that we have discovered the genius and cake of how cloudberry works, nothing that I said would matter if the control's were garbage. Lucky for us the control's are spot on and in fact some of the best in the genre. I never once blamed the control's as the fault of my death. (Sure I would blame my skill's or the particular ability I had) but never the control's. 

Speaking of deaths you're going to be doing that ALOT. In my playthrough I died over 2000 times (and that is just in the story mode) Lucky for us there are "power ups" Now I know I talked about abilities earlier so let me explain. Power up's in cloudberry kingdom are simple you use crystals (which you collect through each level) to do one of the following; Create a trail for you to follow to get through the level, Watch the computer go through the level, or slow down time. While I personally found usefulness out of the first two NEVER slow down the levels all it will do is frustrate the living Jesus out of you. 

Speaking of Jesus good God that soundtrack is amazing. Cloudberry Kingdom boasts one of the better soundtrack's i've heard come out of a video game in quite a long while. Each track really flows with the theme of the game and you can't help but bob you're head as you're listening. 
(Blue Chair)

Along with some great music the Levels themselves look pretty darn spiffy with a color pallet that is great to see these days to just the overall cuteness of the game. Not a single moment were my senses overloaded or under-loaded and everything really worked well. 

I really think that is the key today everything worked really well. With everything that I said above my overall rating for cloudberry kingdom is a very strong 8/10.

This has been a Niker review! If you want to see more please go to youtube.com/theovershieldHQ